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But the increase of the Nile begins in the middle of the hot season, before the rise of the dog-star, and continues till after the equinox. Nature has raised up this noble river before the eyes of the world, and has so ordered its inundation of the land of Egypt that it should occur at the very time at which the ground is most parched with heat. The earth thus drinks the more deeply, and imbibes sufficient to counteract the drought of the whole year. In the part of Egypt that stretches round Ethiopia, you must bear in mind, there is either no rain at all or it occurs only at long intervals, and is insufficient to give much relief to a land which ordinarily knows nothing of water from the clouds. It is in the Nile, as you are aware, that Egypt reposes all its hopes. According to the abundance or scantiness of its overflow is the leanness or the fatness of its season. None of its farmers regards the sky, are the words of your own poem. And why should178 I not crack a joke with my dear poet friend, and retort with a verse from his favourite Ovid?63 who says:
Nor do the herbs make supplication to the rain-god Jupiter.
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If one could only ascertain at what point in the course of the river the rise begins, the causes of the rise would also be discovered. As it is, the river wanders through great deserts, spreads out into marshes, among many scattered tribes, before it is for the first time after its wandering, mazy course gathered into one near Philae. Philae is a rugged island, precipitous on all sides; it is surrounded by the two branches of the river before they unite to form the one river which henceforth bears the designation Nile. The whole city of Philae is surrounded by the Nile, which after leaving Ethiopia is a large rather than rapid river.64 Next in its course are the sandy deserts through which passes the trade route to the Red Sea.[2a] After that the Nile enters the Cataracts, a spot famous for a wonderful sight. The river rises over high crags that are at several points jagged. The opposing rocks break up its course and rouse its utmost force; as it struggles through the narrows, swirls show the points where it conquers or is conquered. A smooth channel had hitherto conducted its waters without uproar. Here for the first time they are roused, and the turbulent cataract leaps down through the narrow passage quite unlike its former self. Up to that point the stream was thick and muddy. But once it enters the craggy gorge it breaks into foam. Its colour is no longer the natural one, but derived from the ground through which it has to force its way. When at length it has struggled through the obstructions, suddenly deprived of support, it falls from a vast height with a roar that resounds through all the surrounding regions. The race planted in that savage place was indeed unable to endure the din; their ears were deafened by the constant crash, and they were therefore removed from the settlement.
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Among the wonderful sights of the river I have been told of a feat of incredible daring performed by the inhabitants. Two of them embark in a small boat, one steering, the other baling out the water. Forthwith they are violently buffeted from side to side by the furious waves of the rapid river, and at length reach the narrowest channels, through which they thread their way till they escape from the craggy gorge. Then they are carried down along with the whole volume of the stream, guiding all the time by hand the rushing craft. At one moment they seem to stand right on their head; the spectators are in great alarm; one gives them up for lost, and believes they must be sunk and overwhelmed by such a mass of water. But finally they are shot out like an arrow, and are discovered afloat at a point far below where they had entered the current. The waves in their fall do not swamp them, but pass them on to smooth water.
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The first rise of the Nile is observed near the island Philae which I have just mentioned. A short distance from it the river is divided by a rock in the centre, which the Greeks call the Inaccessible (Ἄβατος). No foot approaches it save that of the priestly ministers. Those cliffs first feel the increase of the river. Then along distance below that two crags project, called by the natives the veins of the Nile. A great quantity of water is shed out by them, but yet insufficient to flood the land of Egypt. When the date of the sacred festival comes round, the priests throw into these fountains a public offering, while the magistrates offer gifts of gold. From this point the Nile, obviously displaying the fresh energy it has gained, flows onward in a channel of profound depth, but is restrained by mountain barriers from spreading widely beyond its banks. Only when it reaches Memphis is it released; and separating into numerous channels, it roams over the champaign.
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In order to regulate the supply, canals are constructed by hand, and thus the water is distributed over all Egypt. At first near its bank the stream is simply divided; by and by the waters extend till they assume the aspect of a wide, swollen sea at rest. The extent of the country flooded, which embraces the whole land of Egypt to right and left, deprives the current of all its force. The height of the Nile’s rise determines the expectation of growth for the year. The farmer is never out in his reckoning; the fertility of the land answers unfailingly to the measure of the river’s increase. It spreads a coating of soil as well as water over the thirsty, sandy ground. As it comes down swollen, it deposits all its sediment in the dry, gaping cracks, and spreads over the parched soil all the rich mud it has brought down. It thus renders a double service to the land—first, by overflowing it, and then by coating it with slime. And so any portion that it does not reach lies waste and unsightly. If the inundation is unduly high, it does damage.
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The river possesses this wonderful characteristic: while all other rivers wash away and exhaust land, the Nile, though so much larger than the rest, far from eating away or rubbing off soil, actually adds to its vigour; it contains very little that injuriously affects the soil,65 for by the mud it brings down, it soaks and binds the sands. Egypt, in fact, owes to the river not merely the fertility of the soil, but also the soil itself. It is a beautiful sight when the Nile has spread itself over all the fields. The plains are hidden, the valleys have disappeared; only the towns stand out like islands. In the interior of the country there is no communication except by boat. The people are overjoyed the more, the less they can see of their country. Even when the river has resumed its normal course, it discharges into the sea by seven mouths, any one of them itself a sea. Moreover, it sends out many less famous arms toward either bank.
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And then when we look at the monsters it rears, they are equal to those of ocean in size, and no less formidable. One may judge indeed of the greatness of the river from the hugeness of the animals for whose sustenance it provides food in abundance, and for whose free movements it affords room. Balbillus, a most excellent man who has distinguished himself in every walk of letters, has recorded that during his own government of Egypt he himself saw in the largest mouth of the Nile, the Heracleotic, the strange sight of what may be called a pitched battle between dolphins, coming up from the sea, and crocodiles meeting them in front from the river. The crocodiles were in the event vanquished by the inoffensive animals with harmless bite. It happened on this wise: The upper part of the crocodile’s body is hard, and cannot be pierced by the teeth even of larger animals; but the lower part is soft and tender. The dolphins dived in the fight and wounded the belly of the crocodiles with the projecting spikes they carry on their back; then driving home the stroke, they fairly cut up the enemy. When a number of the crocodiles had been opened out in this fashion, the remainder, to adopt military language, wheeled their line and retreated. The battle was not to the strong, the fleeing creature successfully resisted the daring, the most daring fled before the timid! Nor is it by any peculiar virtue of stock or blood that the islanders from Tentyra beat the crocodiles, but merely through pluck and contempt of them. They take the offensive against them, and as the crocodiles try to escape they lasso them and drag them ashore. At the same time many of the hunters lose their lives through lack of nerve in the chase.
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Theophrastus assures us that the Nile has at times brought down sea water. It is a well-established fact that for two successive years, the tenth and eleventh of the reign of Cleopatra, there was no rise in the river. People say that this was an intimation of the impending fall of its two rulers. For as a matter of fact, the rule of Antony and Cleopatra did fall. At an earlier period the Nile did not rise for nine whole years, according to the statement of Callimachus.
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But I must now go on to inquire into the explanations of the occurrence of the rise of the Nile in summer; and I will begin with the most ancient of them. Anaxagoras asserts that the snow melting on the peaks of Ethiopia is constantly running down to the Nile. All antiquity shared the same view, which is recorded by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. But many proofs make it plain that it is a mistaken one. First of all, the blackened complexion of the people shows that Ethiopia is exceedingly hot. So do the habits of the Troglodytes (cave-dwellers), who for coolness have underground houses. The rocks glow with heat as if a fire had been applied, and that, not only at mid-day, but even toward nightfall. The dusty ground is so hot that no foot of man can endure it. Silver is unsoldered.66 The joints of statues are melted. No coating of plated metal will stick on. The south wind, too, coming from that tract of country, is the hottest of all winds. None of the animals that go to earth in winter ever hibernates there. Even in midwinter the serpent is seen above ground in the open. At Alexandria, too, which lies far north of this excessive heat, snow does not fall; but the upper regions have not even rain.
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How then, I ask, could a district exposed to such broiling heat receive a snowfall sufficient to last through a whole summer? No doubt some of the mountains in Ethiopia, as well as elsewhere, intercept snow; but there can never be a greater fall than in the Alps, or the peaks of Thrace, or the Caucasus. It is in spring, however, or early summer, that the rivers that flow from the European mountains are swollen; subsequently during winter time they decrease. The reason, of course, is that the rains in spring wash off so much of the snow, and the first heat of summer soon scatters the remnants. Neither the Rhine, nor the Rhone, nor the Danube, nor yet the Caÿstrus is liable to the catastrophe of an overflow in winter; their increase is in summer, though in those northern peaks where they rise the snow lies very deep. The Phasis, too, and the Dnieper would swell during summer if snows had the power of raising the rivers high in spite of the heat of that season. Besides, if this were the cause of the flooding of the Nile, its stream would be fullest in early summer; for that is the period when the snow is deepest and least impaired, and when from its softness the thaw is quickest. The Nile, however, has a regular increase to its stream during four months.
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If one may believe Thales, the Etesian winds hinder the descent of the Nile and check its course by driving the sea against its mouths. It is thus beaten back, and returns upon itself. Its rise is not the result of increase: it simply stops through being prevented from discharging, and presently, wherever it can, it bursts out into forbidden ground. Euthymenes of Marseilles bears corroborative testimony: I have, he says, gone a voyage in the Atlantic Sea. It causes an increase in the Nile as long as the Etesian winds observe their season. For at that period the sea is cast up by pressure of the winds. When the winds have fallen, the sea is at rest, and supplies less energy to the Nile in its descent. Further, the taste of that sea is fresh, and its denizens resemble those of the Nile. Now, if the Etesian winds, as alleged, stir up the Nile, why, I should like to know, does its rise begin before them and last after them? Moreover, it does not rise higher in proportion to the violence of their blast. Nor does it swell and fall according as they blow furiously or gently. All which would happen if it derived from them the strength of its increase. Then, again, the Etesian winds beat on the shore of Egypt, and the Nile comes down in their teeth: whereas, if its rise is to be traced to them, the river ought to come from the same quarter as they do. Furthermore, if it flowed out of the sea, its waters would be clear and dark blue, not muddy, as they are. Add to this that Euthymenes’ evidence is refuted by a whole crowd of witnesses. At such a time when foreign parts were all unknown, there was opportunity for falsehood: people like Euthymenes had scope for giving currency to travellers’ myths. But nowadays the whole coast of the sea beyond Gibraltar is visited by trading vessels: none of the traders tell us that the Nile rises there, or that the sea in the Atlantic tastes differently from what it does elsewhere. The very nature of the sea forbids belief in the story that it is fresh: the freshest water is always lightest, and as such attracted by the sun in evaporation: the residuum, sea, must be salt. Besides, why, on this theory, does the Nile not rise in winter? The sea may be raised at that season by storms too, which are considerably greater than the Etesians; the latter are comparatively moderate in their force. Besides if the source were derived from the Atlantic Ocean, Egypt would be flooded all at once; but, as a matter of fact, the increase is very gradual.
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Oenopides of Chios has another explanation: he says that in winter heat is stored up under the ground; that is why caves are then warm, and the water in wells is less cold. The veins of water are dried up by this internal heat, he thinks. In other countries rivers swell through rain: but the Nile, being aided by no rainfall, dwindles during the rainy season of winter, and by and by increases in summer, a season at which the interior of the earth is cold, and the frost returns to the springs. Now, if that were true, rivers in general would increase in summer, and all wells would then have greater abundance of water. Besides, it is not true that there is an increase in the heat underground in winter. Water and caves and wells are warm at that season because they do not admit the frosty air from without. Thus, they do not possess heat, they merely exclude cold. For the same reason they are chilly in summer, because the air heated by the sun is drawn off to a distance, and does not penetrate to them.
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The next account is that of Diogenes of Apollonia. It runs thus: The sun attracts moisture; the earth drained of it replenishes its supply in part from the sea, in part from other water. Now, it is impossible that one land should be dry and another overflowing with moisture. The whole earth is full of perforations, and there are paths of intercommunication from part to part. From time to time the dry parts draw upon the moist. Had not the earth some source of supply, it would ere this have been completely drained of its moisture. Well, then, the sun attracts the waves. The localities most affected are the southern.67 When the earth is parched, it draws to it more moisture. Just as in a lamp the oil flows to the point where it is consumed, so the water inclines toward the place to which the overpowering heat of the burning earth draws it. But where, it may be asked, is it drawn from? Of course, it must be from those northern regions of eternal winter, where there is a superabundance of it. This is why a swift current sets from the Black Sea toward the Lower Sea, without interruption, and not, as in the case of other seas, with alternate flow and ebb of tide; there is always a descending flood in the one direction. Unless this took place, and these routes supplied the means whereby what is lacking may be bestowed on each land, and what is superfluous may be given off, the whole earth would ere now have been either drained or flooded. Now, one would like to ask Diogenes, seeing the deep and all streams are in intercommunication, why the rivers are not everywhere larger in summer. Egypt, he will perhaps tell me, is more baked by the sun, and therefore the Nile rises higher from the extra supply it draws; but in the other countries, too, the rivers receive some addition. Another question—seeing that every land attracts moisture from other regions, and a greater supply in proportion to its heat, why is any part of the world without moisture? Another—why is the Nile fresh if its water comes from the sea? No river has a fresher and sweeter taste.